The Compendium of Darkness

by Craine

Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil

By Craine

Synopsis: Discord honestly thought he was just fulfilling his promise: to use his powers for good, instead of evil. He honestly thought teaching Twilight Sparkle Creation Magic was for the greater good of pony-kind. From that day forward, Discorded hated being right.

---

For someone who’s lived as long as I, one would think I’d have thought of everything. Or at least thought of enough to see this coming.

But I didn’t.

That’s the funny thing about immortality, you still age. You still forget things—important things, no less. Foresight has proven to be one of those things, something of which I’d desperately needed for a long time without realizing it. Well, I realized it then, the moment my claw clutched around Twilight Sparkle’s throat.

I should have seen it coming but I didn’t.

I didn’t see the bonds, fragile as they were, undermined by unforeseeable desire. I didn’t see the dangers of ponies getting ‘used’ to my presence. Even worse, I didn’t see the gleam in Twilight Sparkle’s eye every time I taught her a new spell.

Perhaps it was the foolish child in me—the child that cried out for ponies to share, laugh, and cry with—that denied the whole thing. Denied that Twilight ‘I’m Perfect, So Deal With It’ Sparkle, would ever abuse Creation Magic. Perhaps that same inner-child denied the grand plan contrived by the ponies I’d grown to call my own.

I tired of being hated, so I loved.

I did things for them. I fulfilled my promise to use my powers for good, instead of evil. I gave knowledge, I fixed what was broken, I protected my little ponies from danger. And they adored me for it. The very thought of it makes my stomach lurch—my ignorance, I mean. It’s so easy now, to see Fate’s design, to see that I was destined to protect these ponies from themselves.

And from the crazed princess that struggled against my grip.

I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I didn’t see the ambition that once guided every snap of my fingers, guide Twilight Sparkle beneath my wing. I didn’t see the turmoil—the chaos—I crafted simply by giving her what she wanted; knowledge. I didn’t see that, through teaching Twilight Sparkle Creation Magic, I recreated myself in her image.

When she created her own Elements of Harmony, it became vaguely apparent that I’d made a grave error. When she integrated those Elements into her very being, my error became all too clear.

And so had Fate’s plan for me.

Ponies of Equestria, the very same ponies who skittered into their homes at the mere mention of my name, revered me. The six bearers of the real Elements of Harmony, who shunned and ostracized me for the wrongs I’ve dealt them, respected me. And Twilight Sparkle, who dived into knowledge nopony was yet prepared for, who convinced me that teaching her could flourish Equestria for generations to come, who gained unimaginable power through her own means, destroyed Ponyville and usurped Canterlot with that power?

She looked up to me.

And on that day, as I stood over Twilight’s shaking form, ignored the stench of smoke, the sound of crumbling marble, and the cracks and holes spread in Canterlot Castle’s throne room, Twilight Sparkle looked up to me again.

Where once, those eyes teemed with defiance, dead-set to remove that which threatened her dictatorship, they were now wide and pleading. I remember what I saw in those eyes that day; the same eyes that looked to me when a problem need my special touch. The same eyes that filled with love and acceptance, where they once held nothing but fear and contempt.

The same eyes that praised a new hero to their people, the eyes that pleaded for a savior to replace the inactive Elements of Harmony. From those eyes came a plea that resounds in my soul to this very day: ‘Deliver us from evil.’

And with a swift thrust of my claw, that exactly what I did.

Author's Note:

A written response to TMP's 520th prompt: The Fall of Twilight Sparkle. I LOVED writing this one.

Comments

[Pearple Prose]

I love Deliver Us From Evil so very, very much.